


doing alright

by TimeTurnedFragile



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Pillow & Blanket Forts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeTurnedFragile/pseuds/TimeTurnedFragile
Summary: Brian hadn't realized there were that many cushions on the fucking farm.





	doing alright

**Author's Note:**

> i'm feeling a little lost on some of the other fics i'm working on, so have this short fluffy frian in the meantime. hope you enjoy!!!

Brian hadn't realized there were that many cushions on the fucking farm.

 

"Uh," he said when he walked into the living room and found a veritable mountain of upholstery. Stopping in his tracks, he craned his neck and peered at the pile. “Fred?”

 

"Yes?" the mountain replied, and Brian's eyebrows went up.

 

"What are you--" he made his way around the cushions, trying to find a door, or a mouth, or  _something_ , he wasn't exactly sure. On the other side of the stack, he spotted what looked like it might be a crack in the foundation, an entrance. He tilted his head and tried to see inside. "What the fuck?" he asked, thinking yeah, that question pretty much summed it up.

 

"I needed a break."

 

Well, yeah. They'd all needed breaks. That's why they'd taken one. That's why Deaky had gone to call Ronnie, and Roger was power napping, and Brian had locked himself in his bedroom for five minutes of quiet, and when he came out--

 

"What, you couldn't listen to a record like normal?" He couldn't quite see Freddie inside the castle of sofa cushions and pillows, and he ducked his head farther, squinting into the shadows.

 

Freddie's face appeared in the opening. "Like you want me to be playing more music right now, I know how desperate you are for quiet, darling.”

 

Brian shrugged. "I mean. You didn't have to--" Didn't have to what? Brian realized he still wasn't sure. "What are you doing in there, anyway?"

 

“Solitaire.”

 

"You're fucking with me."

 

"And tea and biscuits.” Freddie's head slipped back inside.

 

_Are you fucking kidding me?_  Brian thought, even though he knew Freddie wasn't. Freddie, from the muffled sound of his voice, was dead serious. 

 

“Roger found a deck of cards earlier,” Freddie added, as if that explained everything. Also, it did sound maybe like his mouth was dry with biscuit crumbs. Brian shook his head, disbelieving. Well, almost disbelieving. Except for the part where this was Freddie.

 

Brian looked down at his feet for a second, and slowly dropped to his knees. "Hey, are you..." God, he really wasn't very good at this thing. The boundaries were so different with Freddie. He couldn't talk to Freddie like he talked to Roger, like he talked to all his friends back home. Freddie was different. Freddie was...

 

He couldn't talk to Freddie like his ex girlfriends either, although sometimes the temptation was there, weirdly strong. Sometimes, sometimes when Freddie looked at him, all big eyes and bottom lip, he just wanted to hold him tight and tell him everything would be okay. He sometimes thought Freddie needed it. (Sometimes, sometimes, he thought he was the one who needed it.)

 

Freddie really was better at that than him, being comforting. He usually just squeezed you and breathed down your collar until you forgot why you were sad. Brian wasn't so good at it. It was hard, and Brian was still trying to figure out what kinds of things were okay for two blokes to say when they were friends but, you know, kind of sleeping together too. 

 

"'Cause Freddie,” he tried, feeling for some words that might be acceptable here, now, with Freddie. "We're doing fine. We're actually, like, totally on schedule anyway, and." He paused. "We're all a little stressed out, you know? We're all going through the same thing."

 

"No, you're not," Freddie replied, sounding unnervingly young, sounding like he needed a good cuddle. "It's not your voice, it's not your mouth, it's. Okay, I know it's all of us, but darling, they'll blame me. Everyone will. My--" He cut himself off, and Brian shifted awkwardly on his knees. "If we don't have it, or, if I don't have it. That verse, this morning, that we were working on. It looks great on the page, in your handwriting, but what if my voice isn't good enough for it? Or what if we just think it's great and no one else does and not even my voice can save it?"

 

Brian wanted to tell Freddie that his writing really wasn't that great. Brian also wanted to tell him that they were  _all_  worried, and he really didn't know how to help with Freddie's worry when he was barely managing his own. They were all worried, and that was why they were going so slow, meticulous. They'd planned for this. They had the means to make the album they couldn't before, and dammit, they were going to. And they  _were_ , as best they knew how, and honestly, that was all they could do. But of course it was scary now, of course if felt different. There was more at stake, no one could deny it.

 

He stayed quiet.

 

"I just don't," Freddie started. "I don't want to let anyone down." And then he added, even softer, "I don't want to let  _you_  down."

 

Brian broke into a small smile, shaking his head, because that was just plain _silly_. Freddie could never let him down. "Freddie, seriously. You're not, you're not going to let me down. It's just not possible. Besides, even if I was disappointed, if you weren't fucking perfect, I'd fucking  _tell_  you, you know that. You know what a perfectionist I am. You’ve certainly insulted me for it enough.” He waited, but when he didn't hear a response, he continued. "And, like I already said, except apparently you're ignoring me because I keep repeating it, you're not alone, you know? You've got us. You've got..."

 

They were silent for a moment, and Brian could hear fidgeting inside the cushions, wondering if he'd said the right thing, whether it had been okay to say to Freddie here, now. When things between them were still so new and uncertain. But fuck it, he took the plunge, “You’ve got me, Freddie. Always.” 

 

He didn’t let the silence linger, didn’t give Freddie a chance to respond to what was probably too solemn a vow to make to someone you'd only been shagging a few weeks, when you hadn't even talked about what all that even meant yet. “And seriously, Fred," he said, trying to lighten his tone, "I can't believe you made a--a bloody  _fort_  out of sofa cushions."

 

Freddie's face reappeared in the opening, and a smile was playing at his lips. Brian nearly sighed with relief. "You're just jealous because I've got all the good biscuits.”

 

"What? No, I'm not--"

 

"You know, there's probably room for two in here."

 

Brian stopped. "What?" he repeated. "No, not a chance, I'm not fitting in there."

 

"I'll share my food?”

 

Brian shook his head. "Freddie, honestly. I thought you were stressed out."

 

"I  _am_  stressed out," Freddie said brightly. "Come on, Brimi,” he wheedled. "I'm still depressed, really. Come make out with me in my sofa fort."

 

"You are so not depressed anymore," Brian said, feeling a little triumphant. That was what he loved about Freddie. Sometimes it didn't matter if Brian said the right thing or not, Freddie got it anyway. Because--

 

"That's just how much I love you, darling," Freddie declared with finality. "You make everything better!" His voice was overdramatic but the look in his eyes was so earnest that Brian flushed. 

 

He shuffled a little closer. "I--there's definitely not room in there." Then, after a beat, "What kind of biscuits?”

 

When Roger wandered downstairs later, he found a mountain of sofa cushions that had seemingly grown up right in the living room. Walking all around it, he managed to locate the mouth, and saw two pairs of feet, entwined together and sticking out of the opening.


End file.
